Brexit update: The final leg and anticipation of a breakthrough announcement

The European Union and Britain are expected to announce sealing a new trade pact on later today at 1100 GMT.

Negotiations are still "going through the details" and no final agreement confirmed as yet, an official in the bloc's hub of Brussels said.

The expectation, from both sides, is that a deal will be announced over Breakfast which is underpinning the pound.

The pound has already moved in on a telegraphed volume area vs the euro, as illustrated in the technical analysis below.

Traders have been in anticipation of a deal with Britain and the European Union on the verge of signing a Brexit deal yesterday that would define their relationship for decades.

In more recent trade, Boris Johnson has been briefing his cabinet on the progress of talks in Brussels, but it has been a bit back and forth in the last 24-hours with respect to timings of an announcement. 

To date, disputes over fishing rights and future business competition rules have been the major hurdles to the agreement, however, the markets got news over the wires via BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg earlier.

Downing Street now seemed "very confident" of a deal, Kuenssberg said.

The EU and UK are understood to have reached a political agreement on the remaining sticking points and the shape of the overall deal has already been signed off by Boris Johnson and member states.

The document is thought to be around 2,000 pages long, with both sides having until 31 December to get it approved by parliamentarians while lawyers and negotiators attempt to translate the final compromises, particularly on fishing, into binding legal text.

Downing Street sources said the deal would give British companies “zero-tariff, zero-quota” access to EU markets with no role for the European Court of Justice in policing the agreement, The Times has reported. 

Market implications

• GBP/USD Price Analysis: Eyes weekly resistance line amid Brexit drama

A deal would end the prospect of the two sides imposing widespread import taxes - tariffs - on each other's goods from 1 January, which could have affected prices and would be expected to bring some stability to EUR/GBP.

But deal or no deal, we will still see changes and businesses trading with the EU will face a lot more paperwork.

Meanwhile, here is still huge amounts of work to do on the UK's part in securing trade deals with all of the 70 nations it had while being in the EU. 

Since leaving, the UK has made deals with more than 50 of those countries so far. The UK is also in talks with countries such as the US and Australia with which the EU does not have free trade deals, but none of these trade deals has yet been reached.

Moreover, if history is anything to go by, a Brexit deal is still no means a certainty. 

The European Research Group of Brexit-supporting Conservative MPs has promised to reconvene its "star chamber" of lawyers to analyse any deal that is reached, and that is where things could still fall down. 

Chairman Mark Francois and deputy chairman David Jones said it would "scrutinise it in detail, to ensure that its provisions genuinely protect the sovereignty of the United Kingdom".

As for the cross, it has fallen to a key area on the charts, in a move telegraphed a little prematurely in previous analysis that did not account for some air time above the critical support level as follows:

Nevertheless, the support area was indeed critical and on the last failure, the price plummeted to forecasted volume zone:

From here, the next key support is in 0.8940 but there is a lot of volumes to get through below the head and shoulders: